Running head: HEALTHCARE POLICY CONCERN 1

Running Head: OPIOID CRISIS PROMPTS PRESCRIPTION DRUG MONITORING

Healthcare Policy Concern: Opioid Crisis Prompts Prescription Drug Monitoring Program
Name of the Writer
Name of the Institute
Running head: HEALTHCARE POLICY CONCERN 2

Healthcare Policy Concern: Opioid Crisis Prompts Prescription Drug Monitoring Program

Introduction

Healthcare policy is a measure to improve the health care condition of individuals living in a

community. Managing healthcare is essential for getting the desired outcomes. Nursing

association and implication for the systems entails the responsibilities of refining the quality of

life and improve the overall healthcare system. The legal frameworks require the assigning and

aligning the goals to the nursing profession and strive for a better healthcare system. The

advocacy plays a crucial role in determining the rightful receiver of the healthcare policy and

assessing the results after executing the policy. The Nurses are entailed to consistently improve

the practices by providing superior healthcare quality services through policy implementation.

The Leader is a catalyst for change and human development, who implements the change

through logical implementation of the potential policy through research and information from

input units. The research paper examines the opioid crisis in Missouri and analyzes feasible

solutions through policy implementation. The paper will also address the development made by

the elected official for mitigating the concern.

The Healthcare Policy Concern

The state of Missouri faces the complication regarding prescription drug monitoring

across the state. The residents of the entire state regardless of any age, gender and race fall into

the affected population group. The concern of prescription does not recognize one’s race, culture

or age. It was a statewide distressing issue requiring an immediate action plan to mitigate the

losses. During 2014, approximately more than 4 million Americans used opioid as non-medical

drug and there were record deaths caused by overdone in the history of the United States (Finley
Running head: HEALTHCARE POLICY CONCERN 3

et al…, 2017). The opioid impacted the lives of individuals living in a community, which caused

a rise in deaths and crime rates. The United States of America has long struggled to control drug

abuse, diversion, and addiction, which has continually increased over the period of the time.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services report in 2017, 11.5 million

residents reported the non-medical use of opioids and it caused 116 deaths from the misuse of the

prescription and lack of monitoring and control system in 2016. The lack of a monitoring system

and checks caused confusion amongst the physicians, as they did not know that patients were

visiting several physicians at the same time and getting drugs from multiple pharmacies. Every

day almost 900 patients are treated in the emergency ward for neglecting the use of prescribed

opioids recommended by the physicians, as in Missouri 95 people out of 100 use painkillers

(Saint Country Missouri, 2017). The prescribers are required to gather information of usage of

different drugs at the same instant by the patient before designating multiple drugs. The access to

the drugs must be tightened to make difficult for addicts to overdose

Healthcare Policy Solution

Detailed monitoring and prescription drug program can help the state to curb the

overdosage and misusage of the drugs. The comprehensive control system can alter the practices

of the doctors and reduce the access of drugs for the patients, who are following multiple

physicians at the same instant. However, there are limited prescriptions monitoring programs in

the small counties of the Missouri State. While the state has failed to implement the prescription

program across the entire state, the executive order also failed to make the PDMP

implementation across the state. The executive order signed by Governor of the state entailed the

Department of Health and Human Service to administer the program statewide. The County of
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Saint Louis is responsible for controlling and implementing the PDMP and distributes and

allocates the required drugs.

The monitoring of controlled substances of the patient’s subscription provides useful

insight to control and implement the prescriptions. The critical information about the patient’s

usage can help the authority for the intervention of the authorities by delegating information to

the clinics about the current stage of risk posed to the patient by using the substances. The

control system will help the individuals access the effective drugs while limiting the access to the

drug use to avoid misuse and overdose. In addition to this, the programs would include useful

information and monitor the substances usage, reporting, and requisites of the pharmacies. The

program will demand the physicians to take training regarding the prescription of several drugs,

which requires certain circumstances for the prescription to the patients. The authorized

individuals would be granted access to the information and dissemination of the instructions to

the caregiver institutions statewide.

According to Haffajee, Weiner, and Jena (2015), the patient should be required to fill the

essential information before accessing certain drug and the make an inquiry for the further

history. The physicians would have all the required information about the individual’s previous

history of drug usage, and they can access the database and update the information after some

timeframe about each. The monitoring and control system shows diminishing the death rates

from the overdosage (Partick, Jones, Fry & Buntin, 2016). The use of prescription drug

monitoring program should be optimized and efficiently implemented across the statewide. For

the effective and efficient implementation, the PDMP entails the physicians to make reporting

and sharing of data and expand the data sharing access with the physicians. The e-health record
Running head: HEALTHCARE POLICY CONCERN 5

and proactive approach of disseminating the useful reports regarding the individuals at high-risk

help the system to achieve efficiency (Pfenning & Green, 2015).

Real-time reporting would allow the most current data for the viewer. Interstate sharing

of data casts a wider net in catching mishandling of opioid prescriptions and would permit

accessibility that is legal and convenient. Expanded access in addition to prescribers and

pharmacists would include designated substance abuse and mental health specialists. There

would also be required registration of all prescribers and dispensers along with the requirement

to view prescription history prior to prescribing. Integration of PDMP data into electronic health

record systems would equate to easier workflow and point of care access prompting the use of

the PDMP. Lastly, delivery of proactive alerts or reports hints at suspicious or unusual

prescription history (Green & Pfenning, 2015).

The implementations of PDMPs improve the health condition of the patient, reduce death

caused by the overdosage and avoid the patients to misuse and abuse the drugs. The monitoring

system allows the physicians to access the data of patients who use the opioids from the multiple

pharmacies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2017) argues that opioid risks the

health of patients and the PDMP have a profound effect over the adverse reactions. The

empirical research suggested the effects of PDMPs and monitoring system resulted in a 24%

reduction of the deaths and mishaps related to the opioids usage (Bao et al…, 2016). The

observational research suggests that during 2004-2014 there was the increase of 10% in deaths of

the states with no PDMPs programs and while nations exercising the controlling and monitoring

programs saw the increase of just 2% increase in the death rate (Pauly, Delcher, Freeman &

Talbert, 2018). The research concluded that there was a positive correlation between

implementation of the PDMPs and the reduction of deaths caused by the usage of substances.
Running head: HEALTHCARE POLICY CONCERN 6

Elected Official

The official in charge of the healthcare policy implementation and mitigating the concern

was delegated to the Andrew Koenig. The senator of states with the authority over 15 districts

and the most of the districts fell into central southwest and central suburbs of the Saint Louis

County of Missouri. The senator was assigned the responsibility of public awareness and

represents the issue at the congress. His committee membership was tailor-made for the opioid

crisis management, and the senator aimed to make positive changes in the society. He advocated

the PDMPs and gave the favorable way to mitigate opioid crisis across the Congress and during

the public awareness sessions.

Conclusion

The nursing field is responsible to implement the health care policy, the objective of the

practice is to manage the patients and provide superior care to the individuals to improve the

quality of the services. The research paper also examines the effect of a certain provision, which

will allow the authorities to impact the quality of life. The APNs play a pivotal role in mitigating

the crisis of healthcare concern policy and refining the community-based policy. The research

paper studies the opioid crisis in the State of Missouri and the implication of the prescription

drug monitoring program statewide. The crisis management requires devising a strategy,

studying risk factors and implementation to achieve the desired effectiveness and efficiency in

the system. The State facing a similar crisis is required to create a detailed monitoring program

and studies the use of opioids by the patients by improving the quality of nursing services.
Running head: HEALTHCARE POLICY CONCERN 7

Reference
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Finley, E. P., Garcia, A., Rosen, K., McGeary, D., Pugh, M. J., & Potter, J. S. (2017). Evaluating

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